It's never a good sign when the first words I want to put in a review are 'I wanted to like this, really I did...'.

For the purchase of this particular book, I blame Amazon's recommendations system, which kept flagging 'The Gaslight Dogs' as something I might be interested in. I had a few quid spare on a gift certificate, so I went for it, thinking it sounded interesting but was sadly disappointed by the reality of the book itself.

The book is set in a world where a military system is expanding into the unknown and encountering various tribes, one of which is the Aniw. They live in the far north, accustomed to the harshness of the environment there. One of our protagonists, Sjenn, is something of a mystic and shaman with the Aniw and finds herself in conflict with her would-be invaders when she kills a man who breaks into her home.

There's more to 'The Gaslight Dogs' than this, of course, as Sjenn has a secret that her captors are both intrigued by and wish to exploit. Unfortunately, Sjenn seems to spend her time wandering in a fatalistic haze, while the other main character just comes across as petulant and self-absorbed. In all, I got about halfway through before I decided I just didn't care any more about either of them and the denseness of the prose wore me down. I'm afraid Ms Lowachee is not a writer whose further work I'll be considering, given my experience with this book!